Gun in Bedroom Signals Combat Vets Still Fighting: Ann Woolner

By Ann Woolner -
Jun 1, 2010

He is wearing an orange prison
jumpsuit during the TV interview, so you figure life hasn’t
turned out so well for this open-faced young man with an
engaging smile.

What you can’t see is the Purple Heart Jose Barco earned
when, as a teenage soldier stationed in Iraq, he ignored his own
wounds and pulled burning wreckage off two Army buddies pinned
beneath it, even as his own clothes were aflame.

These days Barco lives in a Colorado prison, where he’s
serving a 52-year sentence for twice shooting randomly at party-
goers in Fort Collins, Colorado, after his second tour of Iraq.
No one was seriously injured, although a pregnant woman was shot
in the leg. Barco was convicted of two counts of attempted
murder.

Troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have been
getting short shrift on several fronts. But, as Barco’s case
shows, the legal system usually cuts them no slack and sometimes
slams them extra hard precisely because they wore a U.S.
uniform.

Prison is where “Frontline” interviewed him for the
documentary, “The Wounded Platoon,” which aired last month on
Public Broadcasting Service stations. He is one of 17 men
returning to the Army’s Fort Carson, Colorado, who, over a five-
year period, were convicted or charged with homicide or
attempting it.

Most of them seemed to suffer from a condition that has
plagued combat veterans as far back as anyone noticed.

Flashbacks, Paranoia

Called “soldier’s heart” when Civil War veterans
experienced it, then “shell shock” and “battle fatigue” in
later wars, the ailment now is recognized as Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder, which can afflict survivors of other horrific,
life-threatening events.

Depression, anger, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks,
paranoia are among its symptoms. Its sufferers often fall into
alcoholism and drug addiction, some beat or shoot their wives or
girlfriends.

The more intense the combat, the more likely the soldier is
to suffer from the disorder. As many as 15 percent of combat
troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan experience it,
according to a Rand Corp. study and a Veterans’ Affairs report.

When the U.S. government needed more troops in Iraq, tours
were extended, stateside breaks between deployments were
shortened, and soldiers already battle-scarred were sent into
some of the bloodiest, most unrelentingly scary work of the war.

So it was predictable that the need for mental-health
services would spike when these troops started returning from
the surge, announced in 2007. But when it came to staffing up
with psychologists and psychiatrists, the military somehow never
got enough boots on the ground.

Break the Stigma

Nor had the Pentagon found a way to break the stigma a
soldier faces when he admits a need for help, or to stop their
superiors from ridiculing them when they do.

It might have helped to remind them all that heroes suffer
PTSD, too. Infantryman Audie Murphy, the most decorated
serviceman in World War II, suffered from insomnia, violent
nightmares, depression and drug addiction, according to
biographers.

In the 1960s, Murphy broke his silence in hopes that Korean
War and Vietnam War veterans might get more help. He urged the
federal government to do more research into the emotional and
mental-health consequences of combat.

Murphy, said to have killed or captured some 240 Germans,
didn’t go out and shoot up a party of strangers. He did face an
attempted murder charge for beating up a dog trainer, although
he was acquitted.

Loaded Gun

And, like some of Barco’s platoon mates, Murphy kept a
loaded gun by his bedside when he slept. His first wife has said
he once held her at gun point.

Barco had domestic problems, too. Before his arrest for the
shootings at the party, he had kicked in the door of his wife’s
home and, finding her gone, fired into her bed pillow, says
District Attorney Dan May. He pleaded guilty to felony menacing.

Barco’s unit saw more combat in Iraq more intensely for
more tours of duty which lasted longer than most. And while
plenty platoon mates returned to normal, productive lives,
others didn’t land well.

Three were convicted in the murder of another soldier, shot
three times at point blank range during a night of drinking. By
the time of that killing, two of them had robbed and shot to
death a Fort Carson private and stabbed a young woman walking to
work who they selected to rob.

Random Shootings

Two other Fort Carson soldiers were charged with taking an
assault rifle on a couple of summer joy rides and randomly
shooting at people in 2008, killing a young couple on that
second night of shooting.

Another, whose father had essentially kidnapped him in
hopes of getting him better mental-health care, was charged with
beating a former girlfriend to death, according to a 2009 series
on the battalion in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

A military report, newspaper series and the “Frontline”
piece all point to the same problem. And while Fort Carson has
been boosting services and attacking the stigma, so has the
Department of Veterans Affairs.

Recognizing the problem, Fort Carson has more than doubled
its behavioral health specialists on staff since 2008 and
instituted a number of programs aimed at better screening,
identifying troubled soldiers and giving them the help they
need.

As for those done with active service, of the 508,000
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have gotten medical help
from the VA, almost 130,000 are being treated for PTSD,
according to the VA.

Courts for Veterans

Federal and state governments have collaborated on veterans
courts that now dot the country. Aimed at getting troubled
veterans into treatment rather than prison, the courts typically
handle drug and other mostly non-violent offenses. One such
court opened last year in Colorado Springs, near Fort Collins.

Barco, diagnosed with PTSD and a concussive injury from his
time at war, seems to have paid an extra price for his service.
The judge slapped another 20 years onto the mandatory minimum
sentence of 32 years, saying he “brings considerable discredit
to the uniform.”

The discredit to the uniform is that the country for which
these men and women risked their lives did so poorly in quelling
the war still raging within them.

(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions
expressed are her own.)